Having unleashed unspeakable doom upon the world once already this year with their multidimensional Spectralbeastiaries EP, 11Paranoias have wasted no time in returning to their unearthly abode to record their debut full-length. Rather than choosing to escape their proverbial pitch black basement along with its insidious evocations, the entrancing trio instead opt to take up permenant residence, feeding off the product of their unspeakable delving and metamorphosing into a multifaceted beast of cyclopean terror.
11Paranoias are the provocateurs of some of the most colourfully depraved doom metal you’re likely to ever hear, and their identity shines through all the more on Stealing Fire From Heaven; the lengthier album format allowing them to fully realise their creative musings and air their cosmic decadence until it becomes an entity more tangible than ever before. And such is the luxury that ‘The Great Somnambulist’ is afforded – an opening lesson in brooding atmosphere, coming across as a living and breathing entity; a dirge dream swathed in smoke and darkness, the nightmarish psychedelia surrounding all and betraying the gloom.
‘Surrealise’ sees the band showcasing their diversity, beginning with a reticent retro riff that conjures Pink Floyd circa 1969, a guileful saxophonist penetrating the night before all hell and doom erupts once more. Their ability to take a basic shell and build up organic crescendos of catastrophe is formidable, with twelve minute ‘At The Cursus’ showing just how effective a band can be whilst utilising a three chord riff, allowing it to carve its path through the cosmos with alarming ease and hypnotic pandemonium.
The cover art, depicting Max Ernst’s vivid dreamscape ‘The Temptation of St. Anthony’, embodies the music aptly with its fantastical bestiary and wholly conveys the horrifying kaleidoscope of doom that this trio inhabit so indulgently. The natural flow of the songs is so genuine that to be pulled into the dreadful haze is not only unavoidable, but downright enjoyable.
11Paranoias’ brand of torturously heavy doom is experimental and esoteric just as bassist/vocalist Adam Richardson’s former band Ramesses always were, yet here lies a beast brimming with a much more playful, belligerent abandon that firmly sets the two projects apart. Stealing Fire From Heaven is awash with colour, yet deeply ingrained is a malignant creeping dread conjured through black ritual and catalysed through the swamp of hell’s own psychedelic jam room. This is one of the most interesting and chaotic albums to be released this year, and it is the sound of a band finally given the breadth to fully unleash their horror and reign supreme.
